


World Enough

by middlemarch



Category: Ballerina | Leap! (2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Hogwarts, Alternate Universe - Western, Alternate Universe- Rom/Com, Cat, Caught, F/M, Friendship, Félicie is a Gryffindor, Gen, Long Lost/Secret Relatives, Ravenclaw, Secrets, Spells & Enchantments, Witches, farming
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-16
Updated: 2017-09-17
Packaged: 2018-12-30 13:30:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,401
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12109749
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/middlemarch/pseuds/middlemarch
Summary: How it could have been, could still be.





	1. Western

“Hasn’t anyone ever taught you how to plant a potato? Or told you to wear your sunbonnet?” Miz Odette scolded, reaching over to where Felicity was crouched over the broken sod, neatly removing the potato with its Cyclops eye and setting it back the other way round, patting the dark soil on top. Felicity snuck a glance but she knew what she would see beneath the brim of Miz Odette’s calico bonnet—a scowl that didn’t quite reach her blue eyes, the sheen of sweat on her pale cheeks. Felicity’s own face was sure to be bright red with sun and shame, but she nodded smartly, unwilling to trouble the woman who’d taken her in. She held still as Miz Odette placed her own bonnet on Felicity’s head, tying the ribbons under her chin.

“Try to finish the row properly and I’ll bring back a bucket of water and the dipper,” Miz Odette said, getting to her feet awkwardly because of her lame right leg. She never spoke of how she’d been injured and Felicity had learned there were some questions that couldn’t be asked.

“Yes, ma’am,” Felicity said, poking her fingers into the dirt, wondering how Victor was making out with the men on Merante’s farm, and whether the boy would bring company back with him for dinner.

“It’s thirsty work but we’ll be glad of the potatoes come winter, I expect. Glad of anything we can raise,” the woman said, surveying the garden, the rudely built cabin with its one precious window hung with muslin curtains. It had been worth the sacrifice of her petticoat, she asserted, and Felicity had grinned and danced off into the field, to pick a handful of wildflowers for the spare milk-jug.


	2. Rom/Com

“I thought she’d never leave!” Louis said, emerging from the butler’s pantry where he’d sequestered himself during Felicia’s impromptu visit. He’d had the presence of mind to bring his satchel, bulging with journals and tangled cords, and his phone’s charger as well as the glass of wine Odette had poured just before her friend arrived, so his exile had not been boring or painful, just dreadfully long.

“She and Victor are at an impasse it seems, and his long-lost uncle is coming to town and he’s asked her to come to dinner…as his fiancée. Something about the chance of a massive inheritance,” Odette explained, standing up and stretching. Her right leg always bothered her when she sat for a while on the squashy couch she insisted on keeping; when they were together, without company, she put both up on Louis’s lap and if he felt like massaging them, she didn’t argue. And if his hands strayed…well, that was why there was no company except her Persian kitten, Regina.

“I had to hide in the pantry over the **chance** of an inheritance?” he said, pouring her a glass of wine to match the one he hadn’t finished without her. He came up behind her and stroked his hands down her arms, kissing the back of her neck gently.

“It didn’t seem like the time to tell her,” Odette replied. He heard the apology in her tone and also that she was tired, too tired to have the conversation standing.

“Forget the couch. If we’re going to argue, again, about when to tell Felicia about us, let’s at least do it in bed,” he said, punctuating his words with more kisses—to each shoulder, the side of her throat, the plump lobe of her ear. She smelled of jasmine. She sighed, in too much pain, not enough pleasure, and he took her hand to lead her to the bedroom.

“Louis, you know why I can’t tell her,” she began

“Tell me again, then, honey.”


	3. Hogwarts

“Félicie Hecate Amaranth Milliner! What do you think you’re doing?” Professor Odette cried. She was generally imperturbable, untroubled by fumes from the Potions laboratory, errant vines from the greenhouse, showers or sparks or feathers or miniature badgers and no ghost had ever made her raise an eyebrow. Félicie knew she had done something cataclysmic by Professor Odette’s tone and the hand holding her wand lowered before she was even aware of it.

“I beg your pardon, Professor. I was only trying,” she began, facing the older witch as bravely as she could.

“You were only trying Mireille’s Juxtaposition, but with a graft of Ondine’s Dream. It was a rhetorical question, Félicie. I knew what you were doing, You, however, did not—and do you know why?” Félicie knew her mouth was hanging open, all her carefully concealed pride evaporated like steam from her bedtime cup of cocoa. She had thought she and Victor had been so clever, that if any of the professors, Heads of House, even the Headmistress herself, if any of them had seen, they would have been impressed. Professor Odette simply appeared exhausted and frustrated.

“Because you do not understand what it means to make a new spell. Because you do not understand what it could cost you—you and those you hold dearest,” Odette said. There was a rumor it was not her true name, that Professor Mérante had been overheard calling her something else in a whisper, Iolanthe or Bellefleur, but no one had ever been bold enough to ask. And now it appeared she had yet more secrets.

“What does it cost, Professor?” Félicie asked. She couldn’t help fiddling with her wand and the sight appeared to soften the glare in her teacher’s usually serene blue eyes.

“A faculty, if you are lucky. Your life, your soul, your magic—if you are not. You have wondered, I know you have, about my leg, why I must limp about this great castle instead of being healed,” Odette said. Everyone wondered, conjectured and gossiped behind bed-curtains and in alcoves. Félicie might be the first to know but knowing, she would never tell.

“I know you will never tell,” Odette said, smiling wearily. So she had the Sight as well! “I cannot be healed. Once, I was fleet and graceful and now I shall never be again. And yet it was the smallest price to pay, when I risked everything, a young fool.”

“What did you do?”

“Professor Mérante and I, we were young once, though you may not believe it, and we thought we could make a new spell, an evolution of Bastet’s Curse. We called it the Pas de Chat and we joined our magic, he has the gift of raffinement and I Lilith’s Generation—we thought we could control what we created, we were so confident…and we nearly died of it! Worse,” she finished bleakly, her dark robes fluttering around her in a sort of sympathy.

“What is worse than death, Professor?” Félicie said.

“To destroy what you love, to hurt what, who you love most, to know you have done it. I risked Louis—his magic and his soul! And he never reproached me, not even when he lay under the Healers’ Hold for a year, he told me it was not my fault, when it couldn’t be anything else. To make an honest man lie, to make the finest mage of an era near to a Muggle,” Odette said.

“But Professor Mérante is quite strong and healthy! Why, yesterday he Transfigured an entire picnic for the whole House and the anthill they had disturbed as well! And he even smiled when he did it. He never smiles,” Félicie said.

“He is now. But years were lost, spells uncast, he forfeited too much when all I gave up was my leg. The Fae would not take my wand,” Odette said.

“The Fae?” Félicie repeated, baffled, astonished. She should not have done, for perhaps her teacher would have said more but the words did something to the older woman, made her seem sadder than any tears could ever do. She looked fearful and young and uncertain.

“Enough. I have told you enough. If you would learn, you may,” Odette said. 

Félicie understood. She was dismissed. She was not a Gryffindor for nothing though and she knew what she must do, how she must seek the Head of Ravenclaw in his tower and tell him he was needed, needed most desperately. He would know what she meant. Who she meant. She would see how a wizard could fly without a broom as he swept past her, forgetting everything, even to thank her.

**Author's Note:**

> A few AU drabbles/vignettes for those so inclined to peruse. Andrew Marvell's "To His Coy Mistress" has supplied the title.


End file.
